Candidates’ list: Ogun PDP urges INEC to ignore Secondus

Ogun State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to ignore the party’s National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus, over the list of candidates for elective positions in 2019.

The party, in a letter through its lawyer to INEC, Dr Alex Izinyon (SAN), said the Commission should not tamper with its decision to accept list of candidates from the Adebayo Dayo-led executive, which is backed by Senator Buruji Kashamu.

The national body of the party had insisted that it was its prerogative to submit candidates for elective positions to INEC, kicking against the decision of the electoral body to obey court judgment directing it to collect list of candidates only from the Adebayo Dayo-led executive.

But Izinyon, in the letter to INEC, argued that “The issue of who has the power to conduct primaries and submission of list of nominated candidates for Ogun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party was no longer an issue which in ordinary cause would have resided on the National Body but has been settled and laid to rest in FHC/L/CS/636/2016. There is no difficulty in obeying and enforcing this settled position by the Court as shown in Suit No: FHC/L/CS/636/2016 which granted our clients’ reliefs and giving the legal stamp to Engr. Adebayo Dayo the 1st Plaintiff as the Chairman, to function in that capacity and carry on all the functions of the State Party Congress as Chairman which functions include to elect governorship candidates of the party.

This is supported by the Peoples Democratic Party Constitution 2017 (as amended). Section 25(1) of the said Peoples Democratic Party’s Constitution states clearly: “There shall be a State Party Congress which shall consists of: (a) The State Chairman who shall be the Chairman. Section 25(2C) states further thus, “The function of the State Congress shall be to: (c) Elect Governorship candidates of the Party.”

Izinyon then urged the commission “to ignore the attempt to obfuscate the issue by both letters and we implore you to continue to accord respect and validity to the subsisting Judgment and the Orders of the Federal High Court in Suit No. FHC/L/CS/636/2016 and FHC/AB/CS/114/2018 as you rightly did.”